July 5, 2009
Rev. David Boyd
Here were are at the end of our centenary odyssey. In June of 1908, the corner stone of this building was put in place. In May of 1909, the first service was held in the then Trinity Methodist Church. Two major fires and three incarnations later, Nelson United Church was born; and here we are celebrating 14 years as a new congregation.
Over this past year I've wondered what life was like back in the early 1900's. Janet reads aloud the celebrate our history section of the Nelson Daily News every now and then and we hear snippets of what life was like. Reading the news clippings that accompany church events on the time line in the church hall has been very interesting. But it's hard to know what life was like on a day to day basis. I'm sure it was difficult in many ways. Navigating all of these hills with horse and buggy or walking was a challenge I'm sure, especially in winter. Thinking about how the church ought to respond to various issues facing a growing city was difficult. Many of us laughed when we read about the local churches' response to the issue of prostitution in the early 1900's. We laugh somewhat condescendingly when we hear about temperance–no alcohol; back in the early mining days, there were lots of bars and taverns and drinking was likely quite prevalent. Trying to decide what the face of Nelson might look like and contributing to that conversation was a priority for many ministers in the Methodist and Presbyterian traditions. But you know, we still face community issues and the question of how to respond. We're just doing it in a very different context in 2009!
For one thing, we're not speaking from a place of strength. Christianity in a post-modern era is just one of many threads, not the main thread anymore. In today's world, people routinely ignore the Church's thoughts about alcohol, or social justice, or poverty, or healthcare, or the environment, or foreign policy, or economic prosperity for all. We are not the centre of cultural and societal attention anymore.
And rather than lamenting that fact, as many do, I say, "let's get on with it!" While the social place of the Church may be different than our ancestors in faith here in Nelson, we can agree with our ancestors that we need to get on with it; I'm sure they felt the same way. We need to get on with being a spiritual presence in this community. We need to get on with providing leadership around social and justice issues. We need to get on with proclaiming the good news of Christ where all can live without oppression, free from racism or sexism or homophobia, where there is a place where you can belong. We need to get on with centring our lives and calling others to be centred in the Creator's love.
Diana Butler Bass, a church historian, has written another book called A People's History of Christianity: The Other Side of the Story. Her claim is that our post-modern era is a time for the Church to consolidate its identity and begin to speak much more powerfully, profoundly and meaningfully from the margins in ways we couldn't from the centre. She calls this post-modern Christianity a generative Christianity, that is it is about generating life, love and hope for all. She also advocates that the forgotten side of Christian history is contrary to what she calls the "Big-C" story of Christianity: Christ, Constantine, Christendom, Calvin and Christian North America. Butler Bass realized that this "Big-C" Christianity is destructive because it is concerned with power and triumph. She said that she began thinking about the story of Christian history that hasn't been told because it doesn't fit with the "Big-C's" when a friend questioned how Butler Bass can be a Christian these days; this was back in the mid-1990's. Butler Bass' friend said to her, "I don't have any trouble with Jesus. It's all the stuff that happened after Jesus that makes me mad."
Leaving behind the triumphal "Big-C" Christianity and getting back to the early Church Christianity, what Butler Bass calls generative Christianity, means that we need to re-examine people like Paul, Lydia, Peter, Chloe, and other early Church leaders. Paul, whom we heard from this morning, far from preaching a powerful, triumphalistic brand of Christianity, speaks about weakness and the paradox that out of our weakness, God creates strength.
We think of the Apostle Paul as a strong individual; yet he was actually small by stature and afflicted with some health issue. He knew himself to have a weakness. Paul raises some interesting questions about strength arising out of weakness. Paul, through his affliction, had to rely on other people; he had to learn humility because he couldn't always do the things he wanted to do. He learned to share leadership and to affirm the leaders of the local congregations that he started; he affirmed and celebrated women as leaders in many local churches. He learned that he wasn't always right and that he could make mistakes. He taught the foolishness of the cross. He advocated for the weakest in a community. And when dissension arose, he taught that the greatest way out of conflict is love and forgivenessÑa love that is patient, not arrogant or boastful or rude. No "Big-C" Christianity here! And somehow, God used this small, weak, sometimes ill, sometimes imprisoned man to be an apostle and to sew the seeds of love and forgiveness in the rough and tumble world of the Roman Empire.
I don't know what the future holds anymore than anyone else does. What I do know is that we build on the work of those who've gone before us, 100 years and more. We build on the likes of John Calvin, Martin Luther and John Wesley. We build on the work of people like Lydia Gruchy, the first woman ordained in the United Church, or Lois Wilson, the first female Moderator. We build on the likes of Paul, Lydia, Chloe, Peter, Thomas, John. Our work for the next few years is to learn what it means to live in a post-modern world to be part of a generative Christian movement that still has good news to proclaim: the good news of love, the good news of sharing leadership, the good news of walking side by side with other faith traditions, the good news of justice for all, the good news of a common wealth where all can prosper not just the elite, the good news of using our weaknesses in God's work for the benefit of the world, the good news of being spiritual beings who affirm life and the possibility of transformation, the good news of never having to let our past dictate our present or our future. It is this good news that we proclaim today on our 14th anniversary! And on this good news, with Martin Luther and Martin Luther King, Jr. and the communion of saints, we take our standÑfor years to come!
Amen.